At 06.36 hours on 23 Nov 1942 the unescorted
Caddo (Master Paul B. Muller) was torpedoed by U-518, while proceeding
on a zigzagging course, changing every six to nine minutes. The
torpedo struck the port side at the pump room, just forward of
the after bulkhead. The explosion ripped up the deck, tore a huge
hole in the side, flooded the pump room and destroyed a lifeboat
and a raft. As the Caddo began to settle by the stern the watch
below secured the engines.

The survivors
of the complement of ten officers, 32 men and 17 armed guards
(the ship was armed with one 4 inch, one 3 inch, four 20mm and
two .30 cal guns) abandoned the ship after 30 minutes in three
lifeboats and three rafts. The tanker sank stern first at 08.30
hours and ten minutes later, the U-boat surfaced and took the
master and the chief officer as prisoners. The boat in charge
of the second mate with 17 men set course for Bermuda, but this
boat capsized twice in heavy seas during the night of 7 December.
Eight men drowned and three others died after the boat was righted.

After 15 days
at sea, the remaining three crewmen and three armed guards in
this boat were picked up by the Spanish motor merchant Motomar
in 38°10N/35°24W, 650 miles south of where the Caddo sank. On
24 December, they were landed at Marcus Hook, Pennsylvania and
hospitalized. The 40 men in the other two lifeboats were never
seen again. The master Paul B. Muller died later in a POW camp
and the chief officer was repatriated in 1945.

Private
First Class
Donald R. Anderson

Company A, 551st Parachute
Infantry Battalion

Hometown: Kane

Killed in action on 3 January 1945
Rochelinval, Belgium
Age: 22

Buried:
Forest Lawn Cemetery, Kane

The 551st was attached
to the 82nd Airborne Division and was assigned to push back the
Germans from the Salm River valley. On 3 January, the battalion
was to attack in the direction of Dairomont, a small village with
open fields covered with fifteen inches of snow and scouts had reported
the Germans having several machine guns, mortar positions and supporting
armor. Recalled as the “battle of the sunken road” by those veterans
there that day, the paratroopers launched the assault with A Company
taking immediate small arms fire and took cover along an embankment
in the snow covered field. A German tank emerged from the left,
near the Laurent farm, and fired point-blank into the troopers.
Another tank came from the opposite direction and began attacking
the same group.
The paratroopers are mowed down and some take shelter in the ditch
along the road. One tank is knocked out of action with a direct
hit in the tracks and the order to retreat back to the woods is
given to the survivors. Sixty-eight enlisted men and three officers
are killed in the fighting that day from the 155 men in A Company.
On 7 January, the under strength battalion led a suicide attack
across the open fields against the last enemy pocket of resistance
in Rochelinval. Company A led the assault with forty-six men and
were decimated by the German machine gun fire. Only seven men made
it to the village edge.
The rest of the battalion finally overwhelmed the German defenders
and captured the village taking three hundred prisoners and killing
fifty-one. After only five days of combat, 110 men were left from
the original strength of 790. The casualty rate was 84%, the highest
of the airborne units after its sister airborne unit, the 509th
Parachute Infantry Battalion.

Posthumously
awarded the Silver Star when he left his foxhole as he saw a truck
burst into flames after hitting an anti-tank mine. In the face
of an intense artillery and mortar barrage, he made his way across
250 yards of enemy fire-swept terrain to the vehicle. Despite
the flames and concentrated enemy shelling, Anderson successfully
extricated an officer and two enlisted men who were helplessly
trapped in the truck.

On 19 March 1945, off Shikoku, the USS Franklin was struck
by two bombs which passed through the flight deck and detonated
in the hangar. A terrific conflagration fed by gasoline in aircraft
fuel tanks, together with detonations of a large number of heavy
bombs and rockets loaded on aircraft, demolished a major part
of the flight deck and wrecked the hangar and gallery deck spaces. Flooding
from fire-fighting water caused a heavy list.

Bombing
mission from Pandaveswar to Moulmein, Burma. Attacked five minutes
after leaving their target, Blair's B-24 had one engine on fire
as it dove into clouds over Bilugyun Island, 10 miles from Moulmein.
Declared deceased October 4, 1946.

Lieutenant
(JG) Robert W. Blakeslee

Pilot, Fighter Squadron 19 (VF-19), USS
Lexington

Native of Michigan, his wife resided in Bradford.

Missing in action on 15 October 1944, over Pacific

Tablets of the Missing
Manila American Cemetery, Manila, Philippines

First
Lieutenant Bert L. Blendinger

C-46 Pilot, 49th Troop Carrier Squadron, 313th
Troop Carrier Group

Hometown: Bradford

Killed in action 24 March 1945 over Germany
Age: 24

Buried: Willow Dale Cemetery, Bradford
Repatriated: 3 November 1948

Private
First Class George O. Bloomquist, Jr

Company F, 163rd Infantry Regiment, 41st Infantry
Division

Hometown: Kane

Killed in action 15 April 1945 at Bongao, Philippines
Age: 19

Buried: Mt. Tabor Cemetery, Kane
Repatriated: 4 September 1948

Private
First Class Peter S. Bonfilio

Battery B, 559th Field Artillery, 83rd Infantry
Division

Hometown: Kane

Died from injuries sustained in a vehicle accident in Belgium on
31 January 1945

Borsa's
C-47 was shot down by American Naval AA friendly fire when mistaken
for enemy aircraft. All five men on the C-47 were killed. Radio
Operator Guerner and Navigator Borsa are buried next to each
other in Arlington.

Bowler
was a replacement gunner for another crew member that was injured.
Bowler was badly wounded by ME-109 and probably died during decent
in his parachute or upon landing near Schornsheim, Germany. Buried: St. Brigets Cemetery, Meadville, PA
Repatriated: 19 August 1949